Traditionally, pharmaceuticals have primarily consisted of small molecules that are dispensed orally (as solid pills and liquids) or as injectables. Over the past three decades, however, sustained release formulations (i.e., compositions that control the rate of drug delivery and allows delivery of the therapeutic agent at the site where it is needed) have become increasingly common and complex. Nevertheless, many questions and challenges regarding the development of new treatments as well as the mechanisms with which to administer them remain to be addressed.
Although considerable research efforts in this area have led to significant advances, drug delivery methods/systems that have been developed over the years and are currently used, still exhibit specific problems that require some investigating. For example, many drugs exhibit limited or otherwise reduced potencies and therapeutic effects because of they are generally subject to partial degradation before they reach a desired target in the body. Once administered, sustained release medications deliver treatment continuously, e.g. for days or weeks, rather than for a short period of time (hours or minutes). Furthermore, orally administered therapeutics are generally preferable over injectable medications, which are often more expensive and are more challenging to administer, and thus it would be highly desirable if injectable medications could simply be dosed orally. However, this goal cannot be achieved until methods are developed to safely shepherd drugs through tissue barriers, such as epithelial or dermal barriers, or specific areas of the body, such as the stomach, where low pH can degrade or destroy a medication, or through an area where healthy tissue might be adversely affected.
One objective in the field of drug delivery systems, therefore, is to deliver medications intact to specifically targeted areas of the body through a system that can control the rate and time of administration of the therapeutic agent by means of either a physiological or chemical trigger. Over the past decade, materials such as polymeric microspheres, polymer micelles, soluble polymers and hydrogel-type materials have been shown to be effective in enhancing drug targeting specificity, lowering systemic drug toxicity, improving treatment absorption rates, and providing protection for pharmaceuticals against biochemical degradation, and thus have shown great potential for use in biomedical applications, particularly as components of drug delivery devices.
The design and engineering of biomedical polymers (e.g., polymers for use under physiological conditions) are generally subject to specific and stringent requirements. In particular, such polymeric materials must be compatible with the biological milieu in which they will be used, which often means that they show certain characteristics of hydrophilicity. They also have to demonstrate adequate biodegradability (i.e., they degrade to low molecular weight species. The polymer fragments are in turn metabolized in the body or excreted, leaving no trace).
Biodegradability is typically accomplished by synthesizing or using polymers that have hydrolytically unstable linkages in the backbone. The most common chemical functional groups with this characteristic are esters, anhydrides, orthoesters, and amides. Chemical hydrolysis of the hydrolytically unstable backbone is the prevailing mechanism for the polymer's degradation. Biodegradable polymers can be either natural or synthetic. Synthetic polymers commonly used in medical applications and biomedical research include polyethyleneglycol (pharmacokinetics and immune response modifier), polyvinyl alcohol (drug carrier), and poly(hydroxypropylmetacrylamide) (drug carrier). In addition, natural polymers are also used in biomedical applications. For instance, dextran, hydroxyethylstarch, albumin and partially hydrolyzed proteins find use in applications ranging from plasma substitute, to radiopharmaceutical to parenteral nutrition. In general, synthetic polymers may offer greater advantages than natural materials in that they can be tailored to give a wider range of properties and more predictable lot-to-lot uniformity than can materials from natural sources. Synthetic polymers also represent a more reliable source of raw materials, one free from concerns of infection or immunogenicity. Methods of preparing polymeric materials are well known in the art. However, synthetic methods that successfully lead to the preparation of polymeric materials that exhibit adequate biodegradability, biocompatibility, hydrophilicity and minimal toxicity for biomedical use are scarce. The restricted number and variety of biopolymers currently available attest to this.
Therefore a need exists in the biomedical field for low-toxicity, biodegradable, biocompatible, hydrophilic polymer conjugates comprising pharmaceutically useful modifiers, which overcome or minimize the above-referenced problems. Such polymer conjugates would find use in several applications, including components for biomedical preparations, pharmaceutical formulations, medical devices, implants, and the packaging/delivery of therapeutic, diagnostic and prophylatic agents.